What Makes Michael Pillsbury Who He is
Michael Pillsbury is someone that I knew little about but have been learning more and more the past few days. I have found that he was an extremely influential player following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. At that time he was an official at the Pentagon and he helped to implement the Reagan Doctrine (which also included the decision about the Stinger missile). This was a key part in ending their role in Afghanistan. Here is what one author has to say about his role (and our role in general): According to Steve Coll, in 1985-1986 Osama Bin Laden also wanted US weapons including the Stinger missiles. Coll wrote, "Michael Pillsbury flies to the Afghan frontier to review training facilities used by two Afghan warlords, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf… Bin Laden family head Salem bin Laden asks the Pentagon to supply anti-aircraft missiles to Arab volunteers fighting in the Soviet-Afghan War. The request is made on behalf of Salem's brother Osama [Bin Laden], who is establishing a semi-autonomous group of Arab volunteers outside the direct control of local Afghan commanders and will set up a camp just for Arabs later this year… Later research will indicate that there is no formal decision by the Reagan administration not to supply the missiles or other equipment to the Arab volunteers. Pentagon official Michael Pillsbury will later say he was not aware of any such decision, but if such a decision had been taken, he would have been aware of it."
Mike Pillsbury has pretty much always played a large role and taken initiative. He started out being born and raised in California and attended Stanford University where he focused on history with an emphasis in the area of social thought. He later went on to Columbia where he got his PH.D. He worked under four of the United States presidents and played a key role for each of them. He also has several books written about him including Clinton's Deputy Attorney General's book in 2008 "Living the Policy Process" and James Mann's About Face. He has also written a few books about China and their military ties and a whole slew of articles and journals on the topic as well. To learn more about Michael Pillsbury you can check out his Wikipedia page or another website about him: www.michaelpillsbury.net. Both are interesting to read.